1892 ledger helps answer questions at Barnum Museum

The Barnum Museum has a collection of thousands of artifacts ranging from the scholarly to the tawdry, just like the displays impresario P.T. Barnum showcased at Barnum's American Museum in New York.

But that begs the question: Where did all this stuff come from?

Thanks to the purchase on eBay of a century-old ledger, much more will be known about the museum's collection, according to Kathleen Maher, the Barnum Museum's executive director and curator.

"It's enormously significant for the Barnum Museum because it's going to give us a tremendous amount of information on the original acquisition of the institution," she said. "Actually, the book goes back to 1892 and covers the period up to 1915."

Maher said that what is now known as the Barnum Museum was known in its early days as the home of the Fairfield County Historical Society and the Bridgeport Scientific Society.

"It closed for a time during the Depression and it reopened in the 1930s as the Barnum Museum," she said.

The ledger was found on eBay by Fredrick Fleischer, the museum's guest services manager.

"I check eBay about once a week," he said. "Usually, there's nothing there of any interest to us, but once in awhile "

It was purchased for $300 and arrived via priority mail last Wednesday, Fleischer said.

The seller was Nest Egg Auctions, an antiques auction gallery in Meriden.

"We don't really put items up on eBay that much, but every once in awhile, we get an unusual item that might sell better on eBay," said Ryan Brechlin of Nest Egg. "I guess I should have called the Barnum Museum. I didn't know how valuable this was to them."

He said the ledger, as with just about all the items he receives, came from someone who was selling items from an estate.

"There's no telling what comes through the door," he said.

Maher said that it will take months, perhaps years, to research all the hundreds of notations in the ledger, which details gifts to the Barnum and Beardsley families, as well as several other prominent people in the city's society scene of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

One such notation has already yielded fruit -- a coat in the collection that was worn by Charles Dickens on his visit to New York.

"We were told that this was Dickens' coat. Now we know for sure," Maher said. "That's really an important thing to know."

That coat is not usually on display, owing to its extreme frailty, she said.

But another item in the ledger is on display at the museum -- the paperback "The Autobiography of Jumbo's Keeper" by Mathew Scott.

"It was probably ghostwritten," said Fleischer. "A lot of people involved in the circus wrote books or had them written. They were sold at the circus and provided a little supplemental income for the performers."

Maher suspects the ledger probably drifted away from the museum during the Depression.

Today's Top Insider StoriesOur journalists provide in-depth analysis and reporting about the people, places and issues that matter most to you. Subscribers get access to all of their comprehensive coverage.Stories from Insider